Tenn. Chick-fil-A Vandalized With Pro-Gay Message

Employees of a Chick-Fil-A in Cookeville, Tenn., discovered last Thursday that the fast food restaurant had been vandalized with a pro-gay message, Nashville’s ABC-affiliate station WKRN-TV reports.

Workers found the message, "God Loves Fags & Chicken," spray-painted on a wall in the drive through of the Chick-Fil-A early morning on Jan. 9.

The message comes more than a year after Chick-Fil-A’s president COO Dan Cathy made international headlines for making anti-gay remarks in an interview. Many members of the LGBT community called for a boycott against the fast food company, holding "kiss-ins" at many locations. The boycott, however, backfired and Chick-Fil-A saw success when former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee created "Chick-Fil-A" appreciation day.

The manager for the Cookeville, Tenn., Chick-Fil-A location, which is about 80 miles east of Nashville, told WKRN-TV the restaurant has never been targeted in the past.

The Tennessee Equality Project’s executive director, Chris Sanders, said no one connected to the LGBT organization was involved with the vandalism and that the group condemns it.

"It concerns us because our community has been the victim of that kind of violence and continues to be," he told the news station. "What if during this act of vandalism someone was shutting down the Chick-Fil-A or the cleaning crew was leaving and there had been a violent confrontation?"

He added that he understands why people get upset about "things in the news," saying, "things that happen and things that effect equality but there are very productive peaceful ways of dealing with them we think."

WKRN-TV reports officials from Chick-Fil-A have not filed a police report and that the restaurant’s employees pressure washed the spray-painted message off the building.

Since there was no report filed, local police will not look into the incident.

Forty gay couples in South Dakota applied to be married during the first month following a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized such unions across the country, according to data provided by the state Department of Health.